1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a support for cylindrical objects, such as rolled steel coils, on the floor of a store.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Such a support is familiar in the relevant industries and in practice is referred to as a "coil cradle". Two rows of supporting members each comprises a number of identical generally wedge-shaped wooden blocks having in side-view the shape of a right-angled trapezium and placed back-to-back against one another in a low U-shape channel lying on the floor. The channel holds the wedges together so that the upper surface of each row has a saw-tooth or "hill and valley" shape. The pitch between the tops can be, for example, 40 cm, so that each wedge shaped block is 20 cm long. The advantage of these wood blocks is that they are fairly easy to manufacture, but they have, in spite of the use of woods such as merbau and mercanti, the disadvantages of a lack of durability under persistent deformation and a liability to splitting and splintering, and even pulverisation, under the generally heavy loads occurring on deposition and removal of the coils.
The trend towards greater coil dimensions and weights continues, so that for both manufactuer and user of coils of strip it is becoming more important to keep the consequences for the supports in mind. In particular larger coil diameters will require greater wedge heights and separations, while greater coil weights make it necessary to reduce the number of layers of coils stacked one above another. With the existing coil cradles, it is not permitted to exceed a certain maximum stacking, because the resulting force on the end coil in the lowest layer of a stack can be too great for the angle of slope of the wedges used, resulting in an unstable stack.
An unstable stack involves unacceptable risks for people working in the store, while the movement and collapse of unstably stacked coils involves financial loss due to rejection of damaged products.